Seasmoke, you key in on an extremely relevant point. Sales in this case are more likely defined as "deliveries" from the factory to dealers. So this seemingly strong sales number is made up of 2 things:

1) gross overproduction by manufacturers booking sales and profits by casting cars on dealer lots which are not wanted or needed.

2) Pulling forward future purchases with toxic garbage easy loans.

Where should this lead? To a shitting of the bed later as many bought already a temporary reduction in sales via trying to actually sell "delivered" cars. Just another case of a positive mirage being forwarded by the ministry of bovine scatology.

Since I have no job and dwindling savings after the sale of my house but good credit I've been thinking of getting a Denali and having a cross country road trip ending by crossing the border into Mexico and parking that hulk of GM shit with the keys in the ignition near some shady looking characters then walking back into San Diego and maxing out the credit card on expensive whores and coke.

Be one hell of a time, eh? I got the idea from the FED, the rest of .gov, and Wall Street.

If you do this, I promise it will be the biggest pop story since Hunter Thompson discovered uppers or Fonda read the ezee rider script.

Grab two greying baby boomer bankers. Convince them to one day to let go of the thread and walk off the bond floor during T-bill pricing. 1 week of driving through America while the bond market goes fail to cover for a month.

They can drive through Detroit, meet a burned out a Afganistan MBA who gives them acid trip flashbacks to their Kerry protest days. Drive through Nebraska where they meet farmers who threw their wheat away for ethanol subsidies and are 5x overleveraged on their 100 year old farms. Let them pit stop in Los Angles where children play near burned out buildings smeared with Hollywood posters for green ethical investing. Let them drive to New Mexico and meet a family of 7 who work 15 jobs to meet ends. Meet the middle age computer engineer now working a gas sation who lost the middle class life in the 2008 crash. Let them drive into Mexico and see a family of 4 paying with their daughters to a Zetas gang for passage to the 'promised land'.

End of the story ? They realize their whole generational struggle to 'fight the man' led them in a false promise. They were the generation that was to lead the world beyond the Cold War through American consumerism. That blind hubis drove the US, and OECD off the cliff. The whole thing, from Vietnam celeb. protests to hype movie careers to repackaged Time life CD's was all a scam built on consumer leverage of the greater fool. Their generation has no clothes, literally and metaphorically.

Can't wait to see the credit report come out and how much uncle scam had to pony up in govt backed loans to keep this nightmare alive. At some point they have to realize the economy just isn't coming back until there is collapse and mass default to reset everything.

Inventory continues to grow. What is on the horizon is pretty obvious now with the fear of taper. Inventories are not going to go down without huge losses; until those losses are realized (ie the unemployed crackheads stop paying on their 6 year at 4% car loan) they will continue to grow.

There was a clip on our local news the other night and they were pumping subprime auto loans. I about caughed up a lung when they tried to explain what a great opportunity it was for people with bad credit. Right back to where we were 5 years ago +6 $ trillion in additional debt.

If you have bad credit in America, you will have lots of trouble buying a house, securing a credit card or even getting a job. But it apparently won’t stop you from one very expensive but common purchase: buying a car.

Subprime auto loans – given to people with credit scores of less than 680 – account for 27 percent of all loans for new vehicles in 2013, according to analyst Experian Automotive. That’s well above pre-recession levels. Financial firms have pushed strongly into auto loans of late, and are increasingly willing to fund subprime borrowers. This year, banks even sold $17.2 billion in auto loan-backed securities, which are bonds similar to the mortgage-backed securities that accelerated the housing bubble.

A year ago, with a credit ranking in the bottom eighth percentile, “I would’ve told her don’t even bother coming in,” said Helfman, who owns River Oaks Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, where sales rose about 20 percent this year. “But she had a good job, so I told her to bring a phone bill, a light bill, your last couple of paycheck stubs and bring me some down payment.

I think all this car buying is being done by that shrinking portion of the population with secure jobs and paychecks...people in resource industries, government, technical/middle management and unionized jobs, etc.

The kind of people who don't think twice before shopping at convenience stores or paying $3.00+ for a Starbucks latte...

I am from the National Retail Car Association & I have good people skills...It's never a better time to buy a new car...go into more debt please, the economy is depending on you, 0% Financing...WHAT THE HELL IS A MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

I just bought a GMC Acadia SLT-1. It's gorgeous, drives and handles like a dream and screams quality inside and out. I really wanted to run my 10 year old Yukon longer but with 200K miles the engine is starting to fail and I didn't want to start with expensive repairs. I got several thousand dollars in incentives and discounts 'cause I bought other cars at this dealer; but I added options that offset the incentives so the car set me back $44K including 6.5% sales tax. I paid cash on the barrel head. GM used to make junk - shoddy, unreliable. These new GMC models are really excellent. The Acadia was every bit as good as the comparable BMW in drive and handling and offered more room, storage and amenities. I love the dash board design - I can actually read it without my glasses! When I was driving the car home from the dealer, I was thinking to myself sadly, how GMC finally figured out how to make an excellent car but now most of Americans are jobless and broke and can't afford it. Sure, one can get a car loan and little down. But this is only feeding the underlying problem, the destruction of wealth in America through chronic indebtedness. Frankly, I was also thinking about the backroom discussions about bank bail-ins and negative interest rates and these made me more amenable to converting some cash into a new vehicle. As someone with serious cash in the bank, I feel like the next target of TPTB.

Really? Only 200K on the clock and you are starting to have issues? What a piece of garbage, and it's worse because you think that is good.

I'm still driving a truck with over 265K miles and it's never been stronger. This thing should last to 500K or more before I need a rebuild, that is how trucks are supposed to be.

Also if you learn how to take care of your own vehicle the repairs are not expensive. I see you are one of those gadgets morons, so there is no helping you. You think 200K is good, lmao!

You are a target because you allow yourself to be, you are incapable of fixing anything you buy so you have to constantly live off their economy to make do. You are not self-sufficient so you will never be able to pull yourself out your situation fully. You have no one to blame for your position other than yourself. Once you understand that and decide to do something about it, you will become free.

I hang my head in shame at being such an impulse buyer and conspicuous consumer, keeping my last car running for a mere 10 years. Jeez, it's hardly broken in and here I am getting a new one. Indeed, people lile me are the downfall of America.

Wake up,, some people are making this into a business buying a new top of range every month, 5yr 10 yr no interest loans minimal deposit.

Those cars are sold straight on to dealers shipping them out of Mexico to Asia mostly China.

Pay the loan for a few months , claim its stolen, or simple default, Either way jobless itinerants who can move to another State and get another car loan don't care.

They also figured rightly that the loan companies do not care as they are all going back to the fed and are going to get settled by more debt.

There are even websites in Asia where you can order them, usually guaranteed under 3000 miles on the clock and up to 40 % discount on new.. Including shipping. These cars don't come from GM inventories in either the US or China.

Who cares,, the low payments risible deposits, and interst rates it will take a year or more before anyone catches up by which time selling a $60 $70 k car for 25k every month is still going to leave you with enoujgh to vanish.